Alina's Adventures

The month of March...

Flew past. The month of March beat its wings overhead in a migratory fashion and sought shelter elsewhere.

These days fly by so quickly it's as if time, itself, has chosen an alternate nesting ground. I can watch it pass, admire it's movement, make efforts to pull together a shrine to its moments. 

I've always been prone to this persistent tug to preserve those moments at the cost of full inhabiting them. As a child curled beneath the dogwood with her journal, thinking myself Harriet the Spy of Springtime Events, I remember the compulsion to record changing azalea colors, the scent of fresh bark, the way grass turned neon after rain.

The same inability to let time pass without remark.

The same urge (oh unquenchable urge) to make something more of the lovely singulars.

This hunger that leads me to the page, the photo, the collage, the trail, all of it, onward. 

 

A molehill is, in fact, a mountain to some living being. 

And a moment is a monument to this restless mother. I can't help saving what I love. Savoring it as we live it. Holding the words in my head for someone that might seek them later....

Relics from daily life.

My mother, the immigrant-- and her immigrant children.

 

I. 

Milla wanted to go and look for "birds and fishes". The vast disparity in habitat descriptions did not in any way impinge upon her consciousness. So we started walking near the nature preserve, our hopes set fast on birds and nests. The stroll gradually found itself unfurling into a saunter. Our arms swinging, mid-chatter, over stump, settling between giant roots.

In the tonal center of a wood song, Milla discovered a relic. The fossil of games once played. A slimy old blow toy. It was only a matter of time until she named this "new bird"- "birdie", of course. Perhaps we see what we seek when we forgo the literal for refuge in the figurative.

 

II. 

We made clay hearts from the plaster given to us by a grandparent. Now we wait for the plaster to dry. Some of our clay hearts are bigger than others. We started with the same amount of plaster but the end result varied.

Don't get me wrong- there's no normative message here. Only that some hearts overflow their designated boundaries. And that it is the overflowing hearts which tend to be more buxom and enticing to the appetite. On the other hand, big hearts take no account of private space. In crossing boundaries, they don't bother to ask permission- they just puff and thrive, assuming bigger is better when it comes to la coeur.

I have a hard time unpacking the concept of "social equality" to my children under these circumstances.

And equity is a brick they've never seen used in the world's richest country. We still build on the backs of our brokenness. 

 

III.

I will never forgive them for the way he looked in that wheelchair, his young beautiful body folded and crumpled. I refuse to forget the way he said, "Go on now, my life is done- you've got yours left to live...".

He knew I would never believe him, even when the news of his suicide took on the face of type font. He was my friend. We grew up playing in the woods together. And I was pregnant with a baby boy- a young American who might one day be called to give his life for something as convoluted as terror. Those were the days when everyone was afraid that their sins might catch up with them. People kept looking for the morning-after pill to chase away the nights.

I promised my friend that his death would be for something less abstract that nothing. I promised to tell others what he learned firsthand- that war is a game in which even the good guys cheat and the only rules are bullets and the hand that needs them. And that terror begins at home.

At the protest, only a few cars "honked for peace". The most vociferous commentators were young men in trucks blasting rap music- the statistical stereotype of southern boys. I was unprepared for the kind of language that a peace sign could provoke:

 

"Freedom isn't free, so fuck you!"

(My son cringed to hear it- "Mom, those boys are mean.")

"Stupid people like you should get shipped to Saudi!"

"Hey lady, you need a good screw!"

"America's going to whip all those Arab asses out there. Eat that!"

 

Nothing is simple these days. The truth is too expensive for us to accept- the cost paid in lives for lies too devastating. No, son, those boys aren't "mean"- they're just scared. And excited.

My son looks up at me, his eyes wide and brown- "This is kinda how those college boys acted when we went to that football game. But war isn't like football, is it, mom?"

I shook my head.

I shake my head.

I'll never stop being sorry for what we've done and what we're doing.

IV.

The echo of a laugh is anything but light.

 

How to celebrate the year's most wondrous night... our winter solstice.

“Though my soul may set in darkness, 
it will rise in perfect light. 

I have loved the stars too fondly 
to be fearful of the night.”
Sarah Williams

Bela Bartok's "Winter Solstice Song"

The purpose of a ritual is to set it a part from everyday life and to create a sacred space. Tonight, we read the story of the Holly King and the Oak King by candlelight. We vow to live only with candles on the coming day. 

 

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me
there lay an invincible summer.”
Albert Camus

We put our hopes in the ever-widening circles and ripples which lead our hearts and minds outwards. We tell stories and discover the ways in which our own stories build upon the stories we taste, touch, and feel.

"The Yule Faeries" by James Claire Lewis

The story of the Holly King and Mistletoe, an annual telling and retelling for us, is central to the celebration.

And so here it is... our guide of readings and rituals for one of the year's most beautiful days. Please download it, use it, enjoy it-- add, subtract, build as will.

Celebrate the season of light.

And never, ever, ever, ever fear the darkest night.

To download, just right click and save as.

Winter Solstice Family Guide (PDF)

Inside the guide, readings and traditions to celebrate yule. For example, you will find a meditation on darkness as well as a wishes for the year.

To burn what is past and yet to remain somehow lit by it.

Happy Solstice and Merry Yule everyone! From our embers to yours.

A paean to unpretty meadows.

I don't remember where I read that our conservation ethos is biased in favor of pretty places. Maybe it was Muir. Maybe the comment was actually about wilderness. Either way, it struck me as an unethical approach to conservation. Similar, in a sense, to deciding which kids should receive life-saving treatments on the basis of their good looks. 

I've seen this ethos hard at work in the case of Hurricane Creek, where some folks say the Eastern Bypass will be a boon for development. Then, behind a cupped hand, those same people whisper that Hurricane Creek is "a working class creek"-- and obviously "it's no Cahaba River". To preserve a wild area requires the discovery of some rare lily. Some impossibly perfect beauty. Because only the pretty people are worth saving. Only the tourist dollars count.

Which leads me to a poem. The poem inspired by the desire to honor a meadow, regardless of its economic value to so-and-so apartment magnate. To honor even the un-pretty meadows. To ascribe value to even the unsexy lives.

Today, the awesome Matrix Magazine published the poem in question-- "I Don't Think We Should Use Words Like Meadow Anymore". Here's the first stanza of my paean to unpretty meadows:

 

There is a meadow across from our subdivision which does not belong to anyone. There are no lawnmowers on this meadow where a coterie of crows conduct their general assembly each morning. There is a four-way stop sign but the stop looks ashamed and some say there is a ghost that haunts the meadow and what the stop sign feels is akin to dread.

Read the rest online.

 

Like historic preservation which aims to preserve the antebellum mansion without an eye for the dogtrot cabin made from nearly-extinct longleaf pine, conservation can be driven by the desire to save what rich people believe deserves saving. Preservation can be a way of maintaining social status. Certainly, the choices made by state historic preservation commissions determine what our children are allowed to value of the past. So it's debutante balls and fainting couches and Scarlett O'Hara swaying at the top of a staircase. Most developers do very well for themselves and usually, they are the ones who have a money-making plan for the meadow or creek in question. Oh Progress, thou art a fine and wealthy god indeed. A god of brass placards and community development. A god to which our politicians appeal again and again behind closed doors and in open chambers-- the god to which some consecrate the awful tornado of 2011.

Speaking of tornados, there's this book you should read (edited by Brian Oliu) titled, simply, Tuscaloosa Runs This. I'm about to start quoting from it. I'm about to agree wholeheartedly with Andrew Beck Grace (and perhaps the whiskey-scented ghost of Walker Percy) when he writes:

"I'm the Southerner who, like an anthropologist living among the natives too long, informs outsides on their customs, their rites, their rituals, their speech."

In other words, I may live here and hike here and dream my way through life here but I'm always a foreign entity. My "ain't" lacks a certain spittle. My "cain't" never could. So I'm not trying to be one of you so much as to feel and understand you-- to savor your BBQ ribs beneath a steel-plant infused sunset. Maybe even tell a true story. 

Which brings me to the post-tornado story. A true story that's jam-packed with traffic and development. When Tuscaloosa Runs This was published in 2012, the development hadn't quite begun. But a Camus-loving prophet by the name of Erik Wennermark nailed it. Probably not because he loved Camus but let's face it, Camus called it over Sartre every time and he had the grist of a good prophet. Three years ago, Erik wrote:

"When they rebuild, they'll rebuild ugly. More cookie-cutter student condos. New look strip malls, Panera and Starbucks and Best Buy. Yes, when they finally opened the Barnes & Noble in town I went too, but with great reservation. Tuscaloosa may have been dull at times and prone to exacerbate my alcoholism, but at least it wasn't like everywhere else in this country-- when I first arrived it could have just as well been El Salvador, so different and unique it felt to me. I fear when they rebuild-- if they rebuild-- it will be just another strip mall suburb along the highway. The same shitty stores in the same shitty architecture. Clean and modern and lifeless boxes dropped to earth."

Did he say the word "life"? Because I feel like that's what we were talking about. I feel like maybe I was saying a pretty life isn't the only one worth saving. A lifeless box is not an upgrade. A massive four-lane bypass is nothing but an opportunity to expand the craven, pathetic strip mall style deeper and deeper into the woods. Then over the creek. Forget grandmother's house because that place was 1,000 square feet and we need bigger houses. Faster cars. Blah blah blah you know where I'm going. 

The fact is simply this: I don't want to go there. I don't want to imagine my hometown covered in highways and byways and neighborhoods abandoned for the latest prefab "community". I don't want to smile and pray to Progress. I don't want to call rampant, ridiculous consumerism a "blessing". I don't want to lie to you and pretend I'm a satisfied citizen of this.

Because...... there are meadows. And because there are people who care about life. And because there are children who might care about life if they grew up in a town saturated with life. Not just roll tide life and tailgating parties but trees and creeks and slippery rocks. Simple, uncomplicated, naturally-existing life. Unpretentious, unpretty, un-manicured life. Yes... WILDlife.

There. I said it. 

Before I go wash out my mouth with soap, you should know there is a beloved meadow in Northport, Alabama currently under siege. You can sign a petition to preserve it here. And I can thank Amy LeePard for caring about life. And I can thank Roxanna Bennett for her sailor's mouth and the wide-open heart beneath. Thank you to all who work to save meadows-- and to all who publish poems about meadows to conserve or preserve the unpretty-perfects of the world. 

The nature cure: Why the only cure for now is nature.

The Eldest shows Amy a discovery at Tannehill.

In the latest issue of The Atlantic, James Hamblin explores the emerging profession of "ecotherapy". My heart skips and cartwheels to see Richard Louv's name quoted in a mainstream media outlet.

Children with ADHD who regularly play in parks have been found to have milder symptoms than those who spend more time indoors, for example, and therapeutic-camping programs have been found to decrease relapse rates in substance addicts. Such findings generally have more to do with mood and behavior than basic biology—but mood and behavior are intimately tied to physical well-being. Social connection, for instance, is one of the most important factors in human health. And communal green spaces foster that.

These are things we know. Things which explain why the Boy Scouts continues to survive as an organization. Because, let's face it, once the Boy Scouts start "camping" online, the Boy Scouts are finished. 

But in this day and age, we don't do what we know as much anymore. Instead, we do what the people down the street are doing. If keeping up with the Jones was hard before, it's almost impossible now that everyone can keep tabs on Facebook.

 

And then there's the dilemma of expert-worship. I was surprised and excited to learn of medical doctors, like Robert Zarr, who write prescriptions for nature time. 

In his office in Washington, D.C., Robert Zarr, a pediatrician, writes prescriptions for parks. He pulls out a prescription pad and scribbles instructions—which park his obese or diabetic or anxious or depressed patient should visit, on which days, and for how long—just as though he were prescribing medication.

Zarr says it’s important to give concrete advice instead of repeating the vague admonitions (Exercise more! Get outside!) that people are used to hearing. “If you came in to me with bacterial pneumonia,” he told me, “I wouldn’t say, ‘You just go to any pharmacy, pick up any antibiotic you’d like, take it for as many days as you’d like, with or without food, and I’ll see you in a month, buddy.’ ” He doesn’t necessarily tell patients what to do at the park, however—just to go.

Zarr is part of a small but growing group of health-care professionals who are essentially medicalizing nature. He relies on a compendium of 382 local parks—the product of meticulous mapping and rating of green spaces, based on accessibility, safety, and amenities—that he helped create for DC Park Rx, a community-health initiative. The Washington program was one of the first in the United States; there are now at least 150 others.

That's awesome. It needs to happen. I hope other doctors learn from it. I am very, very grateful for physicians who take a holistic approach to the care, treatment, and diagnosis of patients. 

We climbed up the hill and then picked up rocks to use as chalk. 
Karst or slate make excellent hand-drawn trail markings on trees.

But when I think of long-time organizations like Sierra Club or small local garden clubs and naturalist groups or nonprofits like the Druid City Garden Project, I can't help thinking the only new thing about ecotherapy is the word. People have been involved in careers devoted to increasing our exposure and interaction with nature for many, many years. What stands out in the present is the medicalization of what was once natural. The prescription for what is patently obvious. 

As a culture, we've outsourced care for decades. Now we are outsourcing common sense as well. Before long, we'll outsource our political conscience to men on TV who bully one another. By long, I mean maybe a few months.

The truth is that kids are more likely to have visited a theme park or Disneyland by their 8th birthday than they are to have camped with their family. The memories we make involve purchases and fancy accoutrements rather than stories and campfires. Maybe what we need most is to heal from exorbitant, expensive, and over-stimulated vacations.

Prophet wants me to look, mama, look!

Hamblin concludes:

What makes ecotherapy different from an attempt to “mine nature for its beneficial effects,” Chalquist explained—perhaps sensing that I was eager to begin mining nature for its beneficial effects—“is that we have to give something back.” He tells students that if they want to experience the full value of ecotherapy, they can’t just go touch a tree; they need to come to care about that tree and help preserve it for future generations.

Actually, I found this to be one of the more persuasive arguments for ecotherapy. If the practice leads people to volunteer in an urban garden (as Smith did) or to start a bird-watching club or to fall in love while chained to a redwood, it could legitimately improve their health by giving them a sense of purpose and fostering social connections. The same could be said of so many unconventional therapies (equine, acroyoga, glassblowing) that seem to be beneficial despite the lack of a clear biological mechanism. And even if you don’t “give back,” it’s tough to argue against doctors’ prescribing time in a park, crazy as it may seem that they need to do so. Soil-holding remains optional.

The nature cure is not a cure-all. Think of it more like a foundation- a brick upon which one builds the walls of a sturdy, resilient, awe-inspired self. We don't go to nature to build muscles we can admire in the mirror. Even if we do, what we get is different.

What we get from nature is a sense of awe and reverence. That's why running with headphones through a city street is not likely to be a nature-cure alternative to your treadmill. At which point in the run did you stop and listen to the wind? At which point did you admire a snail slurping across a log? At which point did you leave the clamor and drama of daily life behind?

 

Maybe it doesn't matter. But one of the reasons that I'm homeschooling my kids is because an unpopular, hidden, and secret part of me believes that it matters. And it matters even more given the way the world is changing. The relationships they build with nature right now will sustain them through the challenges of college and early adulthood. When they can't afford a therapist or a fancy counselor, if they don't make enough money for those options, there will always be some woods into which they may run. A forest into which they can retreat. A haven where the busy bodies of squirrels scamper over branches with acorns and hopefully my kids will look up for one second and discover- as so many have discovered before them- that life is much bigger than this moment's heartbreak. The world is much grander than our bewildering ache. 

I had a favorite magnolia who knew everything from my first kiss to the wonder of my first period. My back nested into that hole in her bark perfectly. The shade of a familiar tree offers not only succor by also counsel: the hope that one's strength grows alongside the burls and bruises of time. A place where things continue to change and yet remain mysterious and eternal. A place where you can both lose yourself and find yourself in the space of a single moment. 

Reading an essay by Wendell Berry with flowers in my head.

Prophet and Gnome cozy up to what they call a dandelion gigantosaurus.

I came across an old essay by Wendell Berry in which he dissects the challenges of poetry and language in the present. His regard for history and tradition has much to admire in it- much I wish I could emulate (if it weren't for the unrepentant revolutionist within). 

Our past is not merely something to depart from; it is to commune with, to speak with…. The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it.

Wendell's respect for the past is ecological. He respects the past as we respect heirloom seeds over Monsanto-generated GMO versions. We cannot improve the present unless we acknowledge the past and build upon it. We cannot end slavery until we acknowledge the social and cognitive mechanisms by which persons were made to internalize the possibility of a human as personal property. 

….our malaise, both in our art and in our lives, is that we have lost sight of the possibility of right or responsible action. Publicly, we have delegated our capacity to act to men who are incapable of action only because they cannot think.

Wendell mourns the extent to which politics has evolved into an act of professional strategizing- responding and reacting to polls and events rather than reflecting upon them. 

Putting exclusive emphasis on a world of words has the same result as putting exclusive emphasis on heaven— it leads to, and allows, and abets, the degradation of the world. And it leads ultimately to the degradation of art and religion.

What I take from this is not where Berry leads in the essay but another place altogether- a place which has been returned to my life over the past three years. A place where my soul rests easy in mystery and awe having forsaken the practice of piecing apart the Bible, word for word, pronoun for pronoun.

As Protestants, we have been accused of worshipping the word, the Scripture, while losing sight of the Spirit.  The result is that one line about same-sex love or masturbation (i.e. onaism) can undercut the entire vision with which Christ animates the Bible— a spirit of love, empathy, tolerance, compassion, mercy, and complete disregard for social or conventional hierarchy. In worshipping the word, we become prey to literalism, our eyes abandoning the mysteries of art for the brisk verbiage of advertisments. 

Yellow Goat's Beard seed head
(Tragopogon pratensis)

I remember the scent of the moist, cool cathedrals in France. I remember how the silence and beauty made me hungry for prayer. I remember wishing the tourist groups would pick up a pamphlet and walk the stations of the cross on their own rather than guffawing and blabbing with their habitual irreverence. I say habitual because reverence is a habit we pick up as children. Reverence is a way of observation which a child either learns or learns to disregard.

I say habitual because we attend a church where the service is liturgical and habit-forming, the habit of silence and rapt attention hatched early in young hearts. My husband and I value this together. We admire not what we see in shopping malls and amusement parks but what covets our attention in sombre wooden icons, stained glass windows, the red vein of late summer leaf.

The decision to attend a more traditionally-liturgical church (an Episcopal church) was rooted in our desire for self-discipline as well as the belief that faith is only a costume without a deep sense of reverence. Both of us have worn the costume. We taught Sunday school together and hosted small-groups at our home. We pitched verses like footballs on sterilized stadium grass, stadiums being America’s version of cathedrals, places we go to wave holy symbols and fabrics and worship some vast and nameless corporate franchise together. 

Musk thistle
(Carduuas nutans)

I remember the rise of the megachurch in the early 2000s. I remember wondering at which point at which altars became stages for self-promotion. Certainly this is a modern development, a far cry from the creekside baptisms of the previous century. The church of Northpoint in Atlanta comes to mind— church of rock concerts and cafe latte counters, daycare dressed to resemble an entertainment park, endless cycles and promises of nonstop fun. An extravagant warehouse geared towards consumers of current Christianity where the walls are covered with hashtags and trends, a place where everyone can be entertained with the enjoyment of modern convenience, and nothing permanently exquisite is built because who knows when you need to expand and who knows what people want next, maybe even a bowling alley.

Musk thistle is a member of the sunflower family.

There is an aesthetic dimension to reverence— it is simple as the soft velvet underside of a magnolia leaf, complex as the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It is a line which connects us to the past, the soil beneath our feet and the challenges of human history.

The reason we need to have our certainties shaken is so that we may see the possibility of better orders than we have.

 

I do not believe we can become better people without an awareness and engagement of this past. I do not believe the incessant amnesia of Christian pop or strobe lights enables us to make a habit of forgiveness though it certainly leaves us with memory and salience issues, certainly leaves us prone to forgetfulness. We must un-know as often as we know, but we must do this with wisdom rather than the need for fun, immediate gratification, or convenience. Perhaps a revolution can be wise after all? Perhaps the revolution is poetry.

Writing and wringing the moments sapless.

Violet heaven behind the house.

Between polishing, editing, and attacking the Defect/or poetry collection, I steal time for seeds and flowers. It's hard to juggle writing, editing, the foreign country of writing/publishing networks (for which I lack a passport), gardens, homeschooling, social life, reading, travel, etc. etc. but there is not a single one of these moving pieces which I am willing to relinquish. Not even the etc.

Especially not the etc.

So the juggling is a clown show and I think of Norman Manea's writer-as-clown analogies which, pen in one hand and shovel in the other, I am perhaps honing into a local variant. 

The year's first grapes-in-the-grass event....

A Sunday afternoon at Lake Nichol.

A windy day on the banks of Lake Nichol where the Gnome secured her first fire ant bites of the year. One lesson I've learned from my nature-hungry kids is that fire ant prevention rarely works. Not with a crew who insists on living and playing at ground level.

MY FIRE ANT REGIMEN.....because every Alabama mom needs one. Here's what works for me.

1. Iodine applications twice a day with cotton-ball. The iodine solution is the best germ-killer around and it also doubles as an excellent drying agent for the liquid pustules. 
2. Band-aids. Because both Gnome and I have been treated for staph infections which began with fire ant bites. Even if you wash your hands, the itch will be scratched. And if you go back outside and continue gardening (as we did), you need to cover those bites.
3. Last resort for little ones who wake up itching and crying: half teaspoon of Benadryl. 

 Beautiful, irrepressible Prophet turns 7.

2015 is not a birthday party year- we alternate years for parties because it keeps them from overwhelming our lives and expectations- and Prophet welcomed her seventh birthday with love letters from family all over the country. Letters and gifts and the feeling of excitement when every package (including the flowers from Bunicu) are delivered for you.

On the morning of her birthday, the kids climbed into bed with me and we talked about how I howled at the moon on the night when she made her appearance in this world. Lunatic. Moon crazy. Crazy for the moon. Moonstruck. All this and more in less than three hours.

Because Prophet was curious, we watched a few videos of puppies giving birth. It was fascinating to compare them with the videos of human female- the same panting, restlessness, and motions as the contractions progressed. Gnome gobbled it up- and both girls wanted to watch again. So we did.

Since the Eldest explained the menstrual cycle to his sisters a few years ago, I've had to settle for second-place in the look-at-what-cool-things-our-bodies-do department. Nevertheless, there was something incredibly tender and sweet about bonding over the story of her birth and reliving with her. It surprised me when she said that was her favorite part of the day- that morning in bed giggling and laughing and talking and sharing.

Prophet craves intimacy, and I love that she can express this without guile or shame. Her presence- this perpetual convergence of head and heart- makes me a better person. Perhaps not always a nicer person.... But more courageous. And happy. Simply happy. 

Rust a relic of Darden Cemetery.

Why not take our sketchbooks to a tiny cemetery and see what falls on the page?

As a prompt, the kids "collected" nouns- everything from oak leaves to infant tombstones. The Eldest settled into leaves and quickly began sketching the peculiar lineaments of lichen on stones.

Prophet copies the letters from gravestones- she feels confident when copying letters because they don't flip around on her as much. What is more difficult about dyslexia- the lagging behind on reading curves or the sense that letters play tricks with you, a fundamental mistrust of the written word?

Gnome abandoned her sketchbook to chase a squirrel. Something about the shadows and the silhouettes of a four-year-old's sketchbook wanted to become a story... but there is not time enough in the universe for all the stories I want to tell.

Upon her return, Gnome attempted various sketches before getting frustrated that her drawings "didn't match." The eraser washed across the paper.

"It doesn't have to match," I said, "just to capture the way you see it." Never let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

The Eldest sauntered through a corridor of graves and paused briefly to remind me how easy it is to get frustrated- and how hard to crawl out of it. There are moments when he takes life in stride (this one) and moments when he stomps hard enough to hurt.

The fence captivated all four of us so that we found ourselves sketch-collecting it together. Four people scrunched down like pinecones catching the fence from different angles.

I wondered who made the small fence- it didn't look like anything I've seen around Tuscaloosa- maybe a small business that passed away. Is there irreverence in attributing death to a business, in saying aloud what we believe at heart- that the life of a business bears more value than the life of children whose mothers raise them alone, scrimping every penny, worrying about whether they can afford the power bill this month?

How will they blend their colored pencils to capture the vagaries of rust?

We collected nouns and marveled over rust. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, those with enough mullah may also earn rust.

Find small treasures in the woods behind our house.

The ground is still wet and the scent of frozen soil wafts upwards, beguiling us further into the backyard woods. Each of us decides to select a special, secret something for sharing. I find the prospect dizzying- there is too much to see and say, too many changes since we walked through the woods last week.

After the long winter rains, tiny bobbed mushrooms peak out from the foliage. It is Prophet who spies the shroom, and Prophet who kneels by its side and tries to sniff it.

"This is my special thing," she says, "but I wish it had friends, you know, so they could be a fairy circle." 

Gnome wants us to come and rub the furry vine winding round a slender tree trunk. "It's not real fur," chides Prophet.

But Gnome refuses to be diminished- "Then how come he grew it? Hmph."

The Eldest lingers near a light orange fungus-- "a lichen growing on dead wood," he determines. Prophet wants to know what he's found; it's situated high enough in the trees for her to miss the view.

"It's symbiosis," he says as he removes the deadwood to show his little sisters. While he thinks mutualism, I think death and rotting and how the world is replenished by what we make of the recent past, how we churn it into legends and stories.  

"What about yours mom?" Mine is the view through bitten evergreen leaf, the other side of magnolia's velveteen dress. At their urging, I remove the leaf and we take turns putting it to our face and peering through it like a glasses. 

It is quiet. A dog barks in the distance towards our house. Home calls. Pinka needs food. We walk back in our heads, brewing wooded secrets.

An excerpt from the poem, "Stag Hunt".

The frog we saw near a beautiful flower.

I tell you it’s too late for anything
but you seem very nonchalant about our dilemma’s solution,
both players must shoot off one of their legs so they can’t chase
the hare, you say, as if legs are just words to throw around in a game.

Think only how clean and cauterizing, this solution,
the only fair solution to the dating dilemma being
voluntary, mutual self-mutilation.
You look happy for once.
We go from Rousseau's story to playing a game
where winning involves accepting a known loss.

Read the rest online for free in Issue 5 of Brickplight.

The writing life: Characters, editors, poems, and perversity of spirit.

In my spare (and stolen) time, I've been absorbed by the characters in my novel- how they developed unpredictably, as if they ran away from me and took on a life of their own. Sometimes, I am the ungrateful parent who wishes they'd behave more like obedient children- fit the expectations I have of them. Other times, I am grateful for the way they float outside my grasp, defying my notions of goodness, my expectations of what a character should be.

Julia Alvarez says you should write about something you haven’t figured out--write your way through to an answer. Embrace and pursue discomfort. Take surprise as a boon. That is the mind-bendingly awesome part.

Then you prepare to present your baby to the the editors. Much like opinionated parents, most editors have a specific philosophy- a bias towards sleep training or attachment parenting or metered verse. The rejection letters come with the profusion of fall foliage, and I take comfort knowing that every editor feels passionately about their choices, every "no" makes every "yes" all the sweeter. 

There's nothing like the way the heart swells an octave when an editor says "yes". Nothing.

Still, the writer wonders- am I fooling myself? Do these poems, stories, or books deserve to be read? Do they add anything to the world? 

In comes Ruthi Thorpe to rescue me from misgivings and self-pity. In an essay for Poets and Writers, she says the only two things a writer needs is “a love of books” and “perversity of spirit,” or the ability to remain unfazed by valid criticism and keep on chooglin'.

“You have to fall in love with the dark formless place where the words come from. You have to be addicted to that deep-sea inner world that is the reading and writing of books. And you have to be willing to ignore just about everything else.”

Ruthi, thank you for reminding me not to take the darkness personally- not to be sad when editors or fellow mothers see things differently. Life is richer for these differences. 

On the surprising side of things, I have three poems in Brickplight this month. 

"Letter to An Unknowing Pissant" was inspired by a conversation I overheard at the playground- a conversation between a father-in-law and a wide-eyed, worried young mother. He was so cruel to her- and his cruelty made him look small.

"Soddy Daisy, TN" was written on the car ride back from a trip to the Smoky Mountains with my one and only beautiful sister- and our families to boot. I imagine all sorts of things on long drives. All sorts, all flavors.

"Stag Hunt" was inspired by my fascination with game theory and a game theoretic experiment that Ed Lopez finished for his economics dissertion in Virginia way back when. I learned so much from participating. Like economics in general, the economics of love is reductive. We make decisions based on assumptions about what the other person is thinking or feeling- then we pretend our assumptions are actually truths. Such is the social construction of reality. 

Take a gander over to Brickplight and see the exquisite compilation of poems selected by Jason Barber for Issue 5, including poetry by Arthur Plotnik, Fassbinder-aficionado Drew Pisarra, flophouse dandy Harley Lethalm,  Tim Kahl whose "oh" stops traffic,  and the tender voice of John Grey.

A poet's happiness: The slice-and-dice of it.

In a 1985 issue of the Black Warrior Review, I came across "A Poet's Alphabet" by William Matthews. I couldn't keep two lines in particular from running through my head:

"Happiness is not wholly an accident, some prosperous suburb of luck. We create our work, and the work changes us."

When I looked back on how my understanding of happiness has changed over the years, it's hard to recognize myself (as opposed to my culture and conditioning) in previous iterations. Happiness is so many things- and happiness is mistaken for so many other things. 

Happiness is not a decent job with medical benefits. That's just a lucrative career.

Happiness is not a prodiguous harvest of heirloom tomatoes. That's just gazpacho.

Happiness is not a purple silk bustier. That's just a prop. Possibly a mis-en-scene.

Happiness is not front-row seats at Carnegie Hall. That's just being loaded.

Happiness is not "well-behaved", finely-groomed children tucked into church pews. That's just control.

Happiness is not a 20-year wedding anniversary. That's just modern economics.

Happiness is not a new puppy. That's just a pet.

Happiness is not winning the Georgia State Lottery. That's just wasted money.

Happiness is not discovering a 24-hour strip club that serves burgers just opened on your street. That's just entitlement.

Happiness is somewhere between making out with a man on Coney Island and the cheap mermaid necklace you keep as a souvenir.

Not the thing itself- just the way it throws you back against the jetties, the way it breaks you a little, then leaves you awestruck.

Cadillac Ranch.

Visiting Cadillac Ranch just outside Amarillo, Texas is supposed to be a celebration of the American roadways, highways, drive-all-night ways. But it is also an art installation created by the Ant Farm Collective as a tongue-in-cheek pawn to consumerism and kitsch. And there are other things it can't help having become...

Barbed wire keeps us from arriving in clumps, spilling through the metal gate in torrents.

And fake plastic flowers remind us that wildflowers grow in muted shades here- the cost of brilliance being early death and dessication. It takes a few prickles to survive the Texas winds.

We walk but the kids can't help running towards the Caddies. There is something moving about the ten minute walk up to the installation. Something like standing in line on Sunday, waiting for communion.

The way in which one woman sidled slowly up to the cars, staring at them as if grieving, changed the way I looked at the ranch itself. It is not a landmark or a pit-stop so much as it is a pilgrimage, with all the religious connotations and all the attendant devotions.

The devout bring their own cans of spray paint and paint pens, leaving their mark, knowing better than the hope of being remembered.

The littered cans clench the artistic value for me. Cadillac Ranch would be so much less powerful without the piles of waste and refuse, the leftover costs of religious pilgrimage, the way we subvert the earth in the name of one god or another.

I tell the kids how much I love it. Prophet scowls for a second, then says she doesn't understand how "those cars fell like that on their noses".

I marvel at the way in which the neon aesthetic is simultaneously soothing and jarring.

We are pilgrims of Cadillac Ranch. Unlike other religions, this one leaves us free of shame and brimming with hot pink.

Bolted lettuce and border wars.

Lunch is a time for the King to survey garden business.

Reading about the South American children stranded between one border and another, I recognize the jagged edges of their lives. Too much thinking and ponderizing is apt to cut into the responsibility of weeding and tending. 

I let the lettuce bolt. 

Being born in Eastern Europe and raised in Alabama provides an upbringing in which the rules of the road are always in transition. The here and now is continuously juxtaposed against the here and there. The verb of me is hard to translate.

Truthfully, every immigrant and exile lives with the effects of displacement, separation, hunger, and anxiety. If the rules of the road are constantly fluctuating, this is because the the context itself shifts from one place to another, one country to the Other. Do we ask Pakistani Americans to feel like enemies of themselves?

Like a hobo on a high-speed train, the shifting contexts keep me from getting too comfortable- from sensing the ground beneath my feet as something solid, concrete, and reliable. 

I'm okay with this insecurity. I've adapted. Learned to love gardening despite knowing the soil can never be certain- always more metaphor than material to me. 

There are other things I've learned as an immigrant. Learn to upload photos and maintain a digital record of everything you treasure, everything you may be asked one day to leave behind. Plan to find yourself online one day should a panel of experts deem you unfit for the privilege of citizenship. Avoid getting attached to textures and landscapes. 

Never look back because the looking will demand you tell a story of what you saw- and this story will not make sense. In context.

Gardening with a few words from Wendell Berry.

Excerpts from Wendell Berry's poem, "The Farm", circa 1991.

Work done in gratitude,
Kindly, and well, is prayer.
You did not make yourself,
Yet you must keep yourself
By use of other lives.
No gratitude atones
For bad use or too much.

This is not work for hire.
By this expenditure
You make yourself a place;
You make yourself a way
For love to reach the ground.

A snapping turtle egg at Hurricane Creek.

A tiny snapping turtle egg found at Watson's Bend.

While helping to cut and move privet and other invasive plants along Hurricane Creek, I stumbled upon something that looked like a perfect little pebble.... and yet, there was a translucence or fragility about the creamy exterior.

So I grabbed my camera- which gave me one measly photo before demanding more battery juice- and snapped a picture. The closer I drew to the pebble, the more clear it became that this pebble was actually an egg.

When I asked other volunteers about what sort of egg it might be, Curtis scratched his head, peered at the egg, and then told me it was probably a snapping turtle egg that didn't get covered very well. Curtis didn't think the egg would survive and manage to hatch.

An hour later, the Eldest and Ellie emerged from their morning-long swim in the cool creek waters to describe having seen a teeny baby snapping turtle wallowing through the sand-gravel bar. In the Eldests' words:

"It was speckled, and looked alot like a rock. But we could tell by its bright back and litle legs that it wasn't a rock. The baby snapper had a teeny head with a teeny beak. We inched up closer in the water and watched it swim around. Then it settled again, laying belly-down flat on a rock. I doubt a predator would have been able to see it."

I only wish I could have seen it, too. Part of me thinks that little egg might survive in spite of the odds (they call that part "the optimist"). Maybe we'll sneak over to Watson's Bend early in the week and see if the egg has moved or cracked.

On the creation of "nature ghettos".

I picked up Jonathan Evans Maslow's The Owl Papers to help me understand the varying species of owl friends in the woods and trees around our yard. In addition to learning more about our barred owl companions, I discovered a few sad observations about owl species in the state of New Jersey- and how the New Jersey Turnpike and endless development have destroyed the wetland habitats of the previous owl residents.

Maslow introduces his concept of the "nature ghetto", a concept I think is an interesting one to present to kids and discuss as an environmental issue (or even a specific case study). In Maslow's words:

Instead of creating arks to save creatures, we created a new type of ghetto for plants and animals: nature ghettos. As in human ghettos, the strong and selfish survive, the fragile and nonconforming perish. The shy trillium and gentle columbine are rubbed out by the slick poison ivy and tough chicory. The sweet-voiced warblers are muscled aside by the sleazy starlings. At length, phragmites blanketed the marsh pockets, choking out most other plant life. They have proved by far the most tenacious of all local plants, ready to invade any vacant lot or send up shoots between buildings. All you see today are the phragmites' soulless stalkheads, bending to the breezes. 

My curiosity about the mysterious phragmites led me to this well-written handout about Phragmites australis, invasive conquerer of native wetlands. In Newburyport, outdoorsman and conservationists are taking the fight against phragmites in the Great Marsh very seriously. The Nature Conservancy uses helicopters to battle the phragmites along the Platte River. No matter whom you ask, phragmites are a dangerous enemy to local ecologies and plant life. Many environmental groups even go so far as to give phragmites the herbicide exeption.

But it's Jonathan Evans Maslow, a reporter-turned-revelator, that truly inspires me. Beginning as a hometown reporter, Maslow's sense of interest rapidly expanded to include the borderless marvels of the natural world. 

Maslow traveled to Guyana for eight weeks in 1999 on a Sen. John Heinz reporting fellowship to teach environmental reporters how to follow stories that uncovered environmental problems in that South American nation. His curiosity and love for nature led him to receive several Beagle II Awards from Stanford which, in turn, enabled him to write and publish more books about the world which captured his loyalty and imagination.

The way a swiss chard sprout can expand one's sense of time.

Swiss chard sprouts

Seeing comes before words. But Annie Dillard is right to claim that words preserve the image of what we have seen.

It is the words- the story they weave- that turns a token into a treasure. Unlike the commonness and plenitude of the token, the treasure is unique and captivating enough to warrant a hiding place. We bury it carefully in a special place, devoting countless hours to creating the map that divines how we get there, ensuring that we are the only ones who will ever get there.

How blackberry fruits come to fruition

The story of our love and hope is the treasure map. As with any such map, the amount of time and passion spent in creating it reveals the value of what lies beneath the ineffable.

So I find myself staring at the tiny swiss chard sprouts, made crazy with joy at the scent of tomato stalks on my fingertips, looking for words to map the daily comings and growings of our garden. Only the call of the mourning dove comes to mind.

Juxtaposing trees, fortune, and national habits.

I know it's odd to juxtapose trees with the images of weekend backyard fun- but there's an epiphany in the brew. It started with a Ukranian folk tale we read aloud this weekend. In the folk tale, a young boy set off to find his fortune. When the King and I asked the kids what a "fortune" entailed, they responded with all the wisdom of their American childhood- "money". 

But there is more to fortune that money in the tales of yore. In our folk tale, a good fortune included a family, a shared narrative, and the joy that comes with the courage to work hard and seek the best.

Here's the rub: There is a qualifier- "good fortune"- that indicates the difference between merely having fortune and having the capacity to appreciate it.

America lacks a mythology for its trees. Unlike the Druids and pagans of the Old World, we approach our trees without the caution of reverence. Though we borrowed a little from Native Americans- mostly names and herbal remedies- none of what we borrowed was savored and kept lidded long enough to sow stories. The lack of studious awe, the stuff of stories, makes sense for those lured by the hard glint of gold.  

As pioneers and homesteaders, our connection to the land proved more practical than spiritual. We loved the land for what we hoped to make of it.

Perhaps even the fact of ownership- the challenge of making land fruitful enough to warrant laying claim- demanded that the ties we forged be of the looser sort, loose enough to keep us from growing too attached.

Rather than name each tree, we calculated its value as timber. Here in Alabama, the longleaf pine forests made way for the rapidly-growing, productive loblolly pine. Certain birds and countless beautiful ecologies were lost in the process.

The nation prospered. Prosperity became a form of patriotism. But all our monied fortune did not translate into good fortune. All the money did not teach us how to use it wisely. All the toys and playthings only stole out attention from the unnamed trees and the holistic meaning of "good fortune" as a life lived in gratitude and joy for all that we've been given.

The dictionary defines good fortune as "an auspicious state resulting from favorable outcomes". I see a fortune in the stately pines and maple trees behind the house. But I see our good fortune as part of an agreement to live with them rather than against them- to live in their shade, knowing they bear witness to our stories- grateful for the chance to learn from our history.

Thoughts on shadows through a shutter.

A walk along the covered overpass to Arcadia Elementary.

Even Aristotle knew that darkness is defeated by that tiny shard of light that squeezes through a small hole in the closed window shutters. 

And that the image of any object standing in liminal space between sunshine and shadow projects itself on the wall of a room, reversed.

We mistake the projections of the camera obscura for something concrete. I guess I'm just not sure yet whether that is the willingness to entertain our own illusions is tantamount to self-delusion.

Sunday silhouettes and cloudscapes.

What began as a plan to play basketball turned into an afternoon of cloudscapes. Looking up at the clouds and each other from the vantage point of a dandelion.

The King settles into a brief observation of Cumulus mediocris. 

Nothing occurs without a context. Our context was clouds- and the study of weather and sky Prophet declares her favorite to be the cumulonimbus- the one which portends a promise of thunder and lighting. 

She prefers the name "thunderhead". And she asks the Eldest, again and again, to tell her about the anvil at the head of the cloud and how it predicts the direction in which the storm is moving.

For the Eldest, the clouds make it hard to concentrate on other things- things of this world, things like basketball games. I like the way he prefers not to fight the daydreaming sky, adjusting his plans as needed. He's a person who acknowledges the leverage of a cloudscape.

Gnome sits astride the elephant and shakes it with her tiny arms. The effect is one of dispersion- each wave a break too soft to crest. The scattering and dispersion creates its own forms. Hail, little Gnome, ye shaker of clouds and creator of cirrus-scapes.

Each of us has his own way of interacting with the clouds. I incline towards the clouds- hoping to somehow scoop them into my body, where their mass mobilizes them into new shapes, always the yearning for new stories. 

"Tell me," I say to the Eldest, "which cloud formations strike you as the most stable and the most unstable."

"Sure," he begins to point and pontificate. Then he asks if I'm worried about the weather, or why I want to know.

"I don't care so much for the stable formations," I try to explain that the unstable clouds are the ones I want to follow, the ones which will eventually be forced by their own inner dynamics to spill into stories- some involving rain and backyard vegetable gardens, others revolving around the way pressure changes and reconfigures us as less than massive. 

A brief foray into the Gnome's world.

Gnome and Cleo, a burgeoning love story.

Although our Gnome is nearing the fantastic age of four, the fact of age is almost irrelevant in the life of a hearty, busy gnome. Her fascination with animals now includes Cleopatra (or Cleo) the cat, a Persian who most closely resembles a barred owl. Gnome tries to pet Cleo whenever she gets the chance to visit Bunica's house.

Gnome is also a steadfast member of the Cousin Isla fan club- the only fan club permitted in the Coryell Castle.

Our fan club policy stems from one of our theme songs, Kill Yr Idols by Sonic Youth. But we make an exception for Isla. Because we date our doctrines rather than wed them.

The longest nurser and co-sleeper in our household continues to be the most independent of its younger members. Gnome plays with blocks alone on a regular basis, building entire worlds filled with stories and secrets. 

She maintains a magical sense of connection with the goings-on of a different dimension- one we might call "irrational" or "foolish" if we were foolish enough to think that way. For example, while we waited for the Eldest to finish his chicken-sitting tasks, Gnome started chuckling from the backseat of the car.

"What's so funny?" I asked.

"Ha," replied Gnome, wondering if I could be trusted with the more elusive aspects of metaphysics. 

"Why are you laughing?" I persisted.

"Because that house has funny eyes," Gnome announced with a grin. "It got eyes like a fly so it can see us really good," she continued, pointing towards the house.

I nodded, laughing. The King cackled. Gnome added that our castle was blind because it's eyes "didn't work at night for a long time". 

Enter Prophet, who quickly explained that's why the fireflies come to our yard- to help the house see at night. 

So the Gnome grows like a wildflower, and the joy she brings multiplies every day's bounty and blessing. Do you have a Gnome at home?

The sight of a strange bud.

"Seeing comes before words," wrote John Berger, as if the words themselves paled in comparison to the sight.

And so the sight of a strange bud thrills me- knowing it's only a matter of hours before the word "insatiable" blooms alongside the world "flower".

Seeing constellations as a way of remembering history: Following the drinking gourd.

Scroll down for this free printable download.

The Eldest's study of the Civil War led us through the Underground Railroad earlier this week. It's a topic I love to explore because it demonstrates how the actions of a few determined, good people made a difference in the lives of those African-Americans who ran from slavery. 

People trying to escape slavery could not afford to ask most Americans how to get North. Asking directions in a society that held no laws to protect slaves was a risk that usually led to getting caught. The man or woman on the run cannot rely on the friendliness of common folks. Instead, the slaves fleeing towards freedom devised clues and secret codes to help them find the direction of "North" on their journey.

One clue was that moss tends to grow on the North side of trees. So, in long excursions through wooded areas, they could look to the trees to determine their direction.

Out in the fields and plains, however, there were few trees to consult. In treeless areas, these brave individuals consulted the skies. They knew that migrating birds flew north in the summer- so they followed the large groups of birds heading north. They also knew of a star called the "North Star", frequently called "Polaris" in astronomy books and charts. 

Unlike other stars, the North Star never changes position. It always points to the north. If they could find a way to remember how it pointed North, then they could use the North Star as a guide in unwooded areas.

An easy way to remember the North Star's location was by looking for the "drinking gourd". Since many used hollowed-out gourds to dip and drink water, the Big Dipper resembled a drinking gourd to them. Two stars on the edge of the gourd always point to the North Star. By finding the “drinking gourd” in the sky, people traveling at night could always find the North Star.

Escaping slaves like Harriet Tubman, James Pennington, and Josiah Henson probably followed the Drinking Gourd to freedom. The song "Follow the Drinking Gourd" helped keep the memories and instructions of how to follow the invisible and very secret Underground Railroad alive for slaves in the South. The topic was such a neat one that the Eldest played the song on the pinao as I sang the lyrics in a pajama-attired evening performance for all. Then we set out to seek the Drinking Gourd itself on the front lawn. Even Gnome spotted the North Star in the gourd!

Drinking Gourd sheet music (PDF)

Follow the Drinking Gourd (PDF)  

FIND THE DRINKING GOURD ACTIVITY To find the North Star, begin by looking for the Big Dipper constellation. Use the two small stars that form the edge of the cup away from the handle. Follow the line these two stars create to find the North Star.

I like to imagine that someday, far in the future, the kids will be stargazing as their thoughts inevitably return to the many African-Americans who dared follow the drinking gourd in the hopes of finding freedom from the injustice and horror of slavery. These are the stories in the stars- if we only agree to see them.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Follow the Drinking Gourd, a website about the history of the song and motif
Follow the Drinking Gourd video sing-along (Sing An American Story)

The magic of nocturnal life.

Image source: Mental Floss with "10 fun firefly facts"

This weekend, the King cut the backyard grass for the first time in the spring season. At my begging request, he left a small patch of grass and wildflowers uncut under the shade of the pink dogwood trees. "It's for the fireflies," I explained. He shook his head, perhaps amused.

We read a dusty old book over a shared lemonade as the dusk insinuated itself around us. The fireflies gathered in the tall grass near the dogwood, that patch he didn't mow. "They need the tall grass because the female fireflies don't have wings," I whispered, my voice lowered in reverence for the wonder of the falling night.

The females lie down low in the tall grass and wait for their lovers to come calling. The flicker, itself, is the mating call. And response. As soon as the daylight dims, a female firefly prepares to answer potential suitors who happen to come calling. It is she who responds to his signal- not by rising up to chase him or follow him but by flashing her own light in response. And waiting for him to descend into the grass for a rendezvous at the location of her choice. 

The King seemed enchanted; my seemingly irrational supplications concerning strange lawn-mowing patterns rewarded by the haunting presence of firefly love nearby.

As the day grows longer, the night gains all the magic and mystery associated with scarcity. The melody of the owl wafts towards our bedroom window, the one to which the King has trained a confederate jasmine vine to crawl. There is nothing in the world that compares to a spring night in Alabama. 

When Gnome began to mumble something about being "scared of the dark" last week, I devoted myself to preparing a lapbook that might leave night's mystery intact while reducing the fear we associate with things we cannot see. I arm my kids with knowledge for lack of a better alternative- and because knowledge is the best form of self-defense I know.

NOCTURNES OF NATURE LAPBOOK(4 pages PDF)

MORE RESOURCES WE'RE USING TO STUDY NIGHT

NOCTURNES, a Spotify playlist
Nature Day and Night, a stunning book by Richard Adams
"Day and Night" video (Museum Victoria)
Living in Darkness activity and lesson plan (TES)
"As The Earth Turns" student web lesson (Beacon Learning Center)
How to demonstrate day and night (Learn Play Imagine)
"New study shows effects of prehistoric nocturnal life on mammalian vision" (University of Texas)
Nocturnal Life (BBC Wildlife)
Nocturnal Animal Fact Pack (Communication 4 All)*
5 animals you didn't know were nocturnal (WebEcoist)
Different adaptations between nocturnal and diurnal animals (TES)
Nocturnal animal noises video (Tom Woodward)

Mustard greens, zinnias, and rosemary: Poems growing from garden soils.

 

I found this first poem on Tweetspeak, alongside a delicious recipe for collard greens. The thought of "eating and drinking poems" makes so much sense to me in the context of a carefully tended garden.

CUTTING GREENS by Lucille Clifton

curling them around

i hold their bodies in obscene embrace

thinking of everything but kinship.

collards and kale

strain against each strange other

away from my kiss making hand and

the iron bedpot

the pot is black,

the cutting board is black,

my hand,

and just for a minute

the greens roll black under the knife,

and the kitchen twists dark on its spine

and I taste in my natural appetite

the bond of live things everywhere.

An excerpt from Mona Van Duyn's poem, "A Bouquet of Zinnias", where the description of colors sticks to my head.

"In any careless combination they delight.
Pure peach-cheek beside the red of a boiled beet
by the perky scarlet of a cardinal by flamingo pink
by sunsink orange by yellow from a hundred buttercups
by bleached linen white. Any random armful
of the world, one comes to feel, would fit together.'

Thyme Will Tell has a fascinating description of rosemary's historical uses as a sacred and very special plant. Though not, technically, a poem, the passages certainly inspire and contextualize many a poem.

Rosemary doesn't just stand for memories. Recent research indicates that it may keep you from losing yours! Even in ancient times, rosemary had a reputation for stimulating mental activity. Today it is being investigated as a possible treatment for senility.

Rosemary may also stand for remembrance because it "recalls" its color and scent so well. "For you," a character in The Winter's Tale comments, "there's rosemary and rue; these keep/ Seeming and savour all the winter long. . ."

The herb was originally carried to funerals simply as a protector against infection. It soon became customary, however, for mourners to drop sprigs of it onto the coffin as a promise that they would not forget the deceased. Woven into the bride's wreath at Tudor weddings, it reminded the happy couple not to forget their vows also.

It was so closely associated with marriage, in fact, that the nurse in Romeo and Juliet could ask, "Doth not rosemary and Romeo begin both with the same letter?" This may be due to its supposed empathy with Venus, the mother of romantic love (Eros). Like the herb, she was also supposed to have sprung from the sea. Unfortunately, later in Shakespeare's play, the friar has to adjure Juliet's mourners to "Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary/ On this fair corse."

Perhaps because of its association with sacred rites, rosemary gained a reputation as a holy plant. Considered efficacious against black magic, it docorated church festivals, especially those celebrating Christ's birth. "Down with rosemary and so," writes the poet Herrick. "Down with the baies and mistletoe,/ Down with the holly, ivie all/ Wherewith ye deck the Christmas hall."

A charming tradition holds that the Virgin Mary threw her blue cloak over a rosemary bush during the flight into Egypt, transforming its formerly white flowers. For this reason, the Spanish call it romero, the pilgrim's flower, and contend that it will never presume to surpass the adult height of Christ.

An old manuscript sent to Queen Phillippa of England by her mother claims that rosemary "mighteth the boones and causeth goode and gladeth and lighteth all men that use it. The leves layde under the heade whanne a man slepes, it doth away evell spirites and suffereth not to dreeme fowle dremes ne to be afeade. But he must be out of deedely synne for it is an holy tree. Lavender and Rosemary is as woman to man and White Roose to Reede."

This association of rosemary with masculinity seems to be directly contradicted, however, by another old belief that the herb would only thrive where the woman of the house ruled the roost. I suspect that many bushes were subjected to surreptious snippings!

Meaning "dew of the sea," rosemary has also been called polar plant, compass-weed, or incensier, the latter because it sometimes took the place of more expensive incense.

The ancients burned rosemary, often along with juniper berries, not just for the pleasant smell, but as a disinfectant. Strewn along with rue in the dock at trials, rosemary protected spectators from gaol-fever.

Rosemary Fact Sheet (Herb Society of America)

A nature walk with Diane Kappel-Smith.

Dutchman's breeches in Dublin, Ohio.

All the recent, rather immediate demands of a growing garden have kept me from reflecting on our trip to Ohio- from mining it for tiny kernels of insight.

But this morning, I found a crack, the kind that swells into a crevice, between the comings and doings.

As the kids worked on their book reviews, I flipped back through the photographs of our nature outings with the writings of Diane Kappel-Smith in the forefront of my mind. In retrospect, posting the photos alongside the text makes me feel as if Diane and I walked the woods together.

It's so much easier to write about the wonder and obvious beauty of nature than it is to acknowledge the extent to which it satisfies and cultivates a craving for fantasy. Surely I am not the only woman to have trudged through muddy trails with Thoreau at my side.

Today, I walk with Wintering in my head. Or, rather, I return and revisit under the electrifying influence of a particular writer who has more to reveal to me in all the things I have seen.

Walk with me. 

"I come back to the papery leaves, the spring beauties, the sun which reaches me here, now, unfiltered. The twigs, leaves, and flowers that are on their way are already formed, were made last summer and packed away in scales and sheaths; all they have to do is expand like balloons, and then their branch tips will begin their hurry to make more."

Diane Kappel-Smith

"Trees grown in the open are thicker of trunk because the wind has blown them, and they choose to thicken in the parts of themselves most stressed by their own bending. Trees in the dense woods where the wood can't push them are thin as wands".

I would make an exception for the dense, heavy hardwoods growing in the Carpathian mountains of Transylvania. Their trunks are as thick as houses, possibly because their location on the side of high altitude mountains demands heftiness as a form of hardiness for the snow-heavy Transylvanian winters and sharp mountainside winds. 

Of course, if American corporations have their way, these old trees will soon be logged to make fancy dining room tables for the rapacious consumers of Hollywood and Aspen. But I hope against hope that something happens to stop them.

BLOODROOT

The large white petals of the bloodroot plant radiate outward, but often only last for one day. One of the ways to recognize this plant is the leaf often looks like it wants to wrap itself around the flower. If you cut the stem or dig the root, it will bleed a bright red-orange juice.

"In these maples and birch and beech the branches reach out year after year, running skyward like the fingers of rivulets when water is poured on dry ground."

Critical Thinking Exercise on Diana Kappel-Smith review (PDF)
A little something I made for the Eldest and wanted to share.

YELLOW TROUT LILY

Trout Lilies like to keep their feet wet and are common, especially along river floodplains. There are both white and yellow species here. The six petals are usually recurved like this. The mottled leaves is a diagnostic character.

I love the way the leaves resemble purple tie-dyed shirts.

A golden goodbye whose shadow is even lovelier than its hue.

A splittlebug surprise.

Strolling down to test the water at Hurricane Creek Park, we noticed some foamy masses in the branches of a scotch pine tree.

"Spittlebugs," mused Amy. 

Having never seen a spittlebug, I stopped to snap a few blurry photos for later exploration.

Spittlebugs are the nymph form of froghoppers. And froghoppers earned their name because they have an incredible jumping range and their faces resemble those of frogs. In fact, NPR named the spittlebug "highest insect jumper", outstripping even the flea in its leaping skills. The same physics involved in archery enables spittlebugs to "jump like an arrow". 

The froth serves a number of purposes. It hides the nymph from the view of predators and parasites, it insulates against heat and cold, thus providing thermal control and also moisture control. Without the froth the insect would quickly dry up. The nymphs pierce plants and suck sap causing very little damage, much of the filtered fluids go into the production of the froth, which has an acrid taste, deterring predators. 

According to the New International Encyclopedia, the larvae and pupae of "froth-flies" (another neat name for these well-deserving nymphs) are found in a frothy exudation on plants and trees. This froth, often called "frog-spittle", is composed of sap which the insect sucks up through its probiscis. The sap passes through the intestine and is emitted as a clear mass, into which the insect draws bubbles of air by means of its tail claspers, and thus makes foam. Once the bubbles have formed, spittlebugs use their hind legs to cover themselves with the froth. The ‘spittle’ serves multiple purposes.

1. It shields the spittlebugs from predators
2. It insulates them from temperature extremes
3. It prevents the spittlebugs from dehydrating

All this spittlebug exploring created an imperative for lapbooking- which, of course, led me to create a few spittlebug learning materials. Enjoy them because they're fun and as free as any spittlebugs you may find in  a tree!

Spittlebug and froghopper pictures (PDF)
Includes a coloring page of froghopper.

Spittlebug booklet (PDF)
Includes images and questions.

 MORE TO EXPLORE

Spittlebug information sheet (University of Minnesota)
Two-lined spittlebug (Texas A&M Extension)
Pine spittlebug fact sheet (Ohio State University)
Saratoga spittlebug (USDA Forest Service)
Pecan spittlebug fact sheet (LSU Extension)
Black and red froghopper (Tout un monde dans mon jardin)
"Spittlebug named highest insect jumper" (All Things Considered audio stream)
Cuckoo spit and froghoppers (Bug Blog)
Meadow spittlebug color varieties chart (Bug Guide)

In hope of henbit: A discovery of devotion.

The cost of daily nature study with my children is this blooming ardor for all things green. I crave the company of wildflowers. There are times when I yearn for nothing more than a sheet of paper, a pencil, and a mute plant nearby. A particular plant with a story it wants me to tell. 

There is a carpet of stunning purple-blue wildflowers under the camellias near our front door. Part of me finds herself hoping for a henbit identification. For some unspeakable reason, I maintain a steady affection- an openness to being charmed and re-charmed- for the henbit.

The facts, themselves, don't explain my affection. As a matter of fact, henbit is a member of the mint family. There are a lot of mints that do not smell minty, some of them are edible and some of them are not. In fact, some of the mints can make you ill. Though henbit lacks the minty smell, it is an edible herb. Eat the Weeds offers a detailed scoop on henbit's lovely qualities. 

The mystery accrues, growing heavy with the weight of various Latin names and specifications. I aim for henbit, in spite of the bits that don't add up.

The more I study, the more I find satisfaction in touching the flower with all my senses- seeking a scent, lifting it, again, to the light. Sketching and re-sketching. Focusing on the stalk, adding tiny hairs along its length, bonding closer to my subject. Reminiscient of the way writing a poem breaks down the barriers between myself and what I allow myself to feel for and in the world around me, trying to find a name for this flower wraps me tighter into the wonder and magic of its existence. 

Though I can't seem to find a better id- not even on Wildflower Identification Guide- it seems highly unlikely that this would be henbit. It lacks the characteristic heart-shaped, scalloped leaves that grasp the stem and give it the nickname grasping henbit. 

I find myself focusing on the leaf shape, wondering if the oval is actually a lyre. Since lyreleaf sage grows well in this part of the country, I convince myself that the characterstic lyre-shaped leaves need not be quite as, well, lyre-like as the name suggests.

At some point I realize that more than mere science is at stake. 

Pigmentation takes me further towards distracted fascination and closer to mis-identification. I discover a trance-inducing new blog, Anybody Seen My Focus, where I learn that the leaves of lyreleaf sage reveal the amount of daily sunlight it receives. The greener leaves are usually those of the plants who receive full sun. Purple pigmentation in the edges or flesh of the leaf indicates a shade-dwelling sage. This makes sense given the partial shade in which I found our flower friend.

The King reminds me of our plans for the day, the kids throb their way through the castle, a restless rhythm demands I drop my pencil, turn away from the mystery, and face the familiar music. 

At this point, I recognize the religious pilgrim in myself- the spirit steadfastly seeking an intimacy from something outside the material world. My devotion to this simple garden weed becomes a journey, a quest for a name with all the potency of the Holy Grail. So I leave my awe, like a half-knit sock in the fair trade basket woven by women from Nigeria, for another time, another day, another moment. 

But it's hard for me. Easier to drop the sock in the basket than to quash this burning urge which developed in pursuit of a plant.  

Purple deadnettle vs. henbit factsheet (UT Extension)
Purple deadnettle (Brooklyn Botanical Garden)
Creeping charlie, or ground ivy (Edible Wild Food)
Beautiful images of henbit flower (Project Noah)
A lovely look at Lyreleaf sage (Anybody Seen My Focus)

Love letter #121: The poetic life of the egg tooth.

Three eggs discovered at a rest area in Kentucky.

The last few lines from Gail Mazur's poem, "Evening", come to mind. The lines in which the elderly woman insists that she wants the blue eggs more than the promise of the bird tucked within them.

If it weren't for the specialized aptitude of the egg tooth, the baby bird might never emerge from the egg. The baby would remain a possibility rather than a probability. 

The egg tooth fascinates me. Lodged in my neural networks, waiting to morph into the perfect metaphor, I hold it back like a pawn piece on a chess board, knowing the perfect exchange will appear to those with the patience to see it. 

Chicks with wings that don't work, those baby birds, ensconced in the protective covering of the portable womb known more commonly as "egg". Since the beak and the claws of the chick are not fully developed and cannot penetrate the egg shell at the time when the chick is ready to emerge, the egg tooth plays it brief, dazzling role. 

Found only in emerging chicks, the egg tooth's purpose is brief and to the point; it serves only to assist the baby bird in breaking through the hard shell in the process known as "pipping".

For a chick, the cost of growing within the egg-womb is a decreased ability to absorb enough oxygen through the pores of its eggshell. Compelled by its natural wisdom, the oxygen-thirsty chick uses its egg tooth to peck a hole in the air sac located at the flat end of the egg. This sac provides a few hours worth of air, during which the chick breaks through the eggshell to the outside. 

Far from being a singular miracle, the egg tooth works in concert with a special muscle on the back of the chick's neck. This pipping muscle provides chicks with the strength to force the egg tooth through the inner membrane of the eggshell.

The chick hatches, leaving its shell behind. Soon it learns to open its mouth expectantly. Finally, a few days after hatching, the egg tooth falls off, its purpose exhausted. 

C.D. Wright admires the egg tooth in "Obscurity and Selfhood", a poem published in 1949. I like the poem so much that I can't bear to parse it, to surgically remove pieces and pretend any life can be left in the dissected corpse. So here it is, in it's entirety, in honor of the marvelous egg tooth.

OBSCURITY AND SELFHOOD

by C. D. Wright

Not far
from a college.
Nevertheless.
A man
living by himself

kept his fighting cocks in plain sight. Each had its own tether and
miniature shed and dish with embossed sobriquet. Their domestication
reserved for battle before the table. Gallus gallus domesticus. A young
male, a cockerel, my husband’s patronymic before the adoption. Some hens
are disposed to poach another’s egg. Once there were teeth. Given certain
conditions they could come back. If not a full set. Even now a breathing hole
has to be pipped for the offspring to break out. This is done with an egg tooth.
Not a true tooth. Love among the chickens involves a circle dance. He is
a wonderful dancer. It goes straight to her brain. Before and after they prefer
to wash off in dust. Ashes will work if no dust. If they aren’t forced into shedding
one another’s blood, they can live until their heart gives out.
The cock
the man
could not
resist
loving.
He withdrew
from
the ring.
Yet
relinquished.
To settle
an unforgiven
debt.

My question is this:
Would you describe yourself
as a wanderer, a friend of the court, amicus curiae, falsely construed as a snitch, a blue yodeler,
   an apostate, a lost cause, a bird in the house, a biter, a common blogger, a contender, a purse
   snatcher, a false witness, a palterer, a silkie, a backyarder, channeler
for malevolent spirits, girt in the loins, figure on a shard of black pottery, moderately active, a fog
   machine, a visionary miserabilist, a chook or a cuckold, a roundhead, a little seditious, a slow-wave
   sleeper, a dead mule, a gongorist, honey on the comb, half goat half god, a white throwback, crossed
   with a mongrel, a genesis, a retired fighting
cock,
a doll
named
Memphis.

Watching a luna moth emerge and dry its wings.

It was the Eldest who first spotted the bright green friend crouched in a corner of the castle exterior.

"A friendly dragon," we determined. 

Moving closer to establish the requisite rapport, we realized that our friendly dragon was actually a luna moth recently emerged from its pupa and testing its wings in real-time. Luna moths only live for a brief period of time, during which they must first spend a day allowing their fragile, splendid wings to dry.

Things began to happen very quickly- with the same intensity of being in labor, tiny movements leading to fantastic physical changes.

I called Prophet, Gnome, and Little B. to join us.

We watched the moth's fragile wings tremble with each gust of fragrant spring wind.

We studied the perfect symmetry of the lines on its back. Then discussed the shapes we could find in its thorax and abdomen.

Suddenly, the luna moth shuddered and curled into itself. When it curled back out again, two slender appendages with golden endings emerged and remained dangling.

Gnome opens the gate carefully so as not to disturb our moth friend.

When the luna moth tumbled down from its high spot on the wall, we watched with bated breath as it climbed up the side of the wooden fence to rest at the top of the gate. Then we relocated to watch the events from the other side of the fence. 

The Eldest admired the luna moth's "featherlike" antlers, which appeared to be made of perfect, super-sensitive combs.

"I can't believe it is so perfect.... and delicate," he concluded, as he stood, transfixed, by the tiny details witnessed up close, the ones we never bother to seek unless forced before us by a circumstance.

And so we sat, and watched- the little ones resorting to dirt and stones when the waiting felt too laborious. We made up poems and rhymes, which quickly turned to songs and riddles.

Four hours and several bowls of pineapple later, our luna moth friend felt ready to fly. I won't tell you which one of us cried when it finally heaved its amazing wings and fluttered away. The whole watching and waiting was intensely beautiful and awe-inspiring. I learned more about from this brief learning experience than I have learned from any textbook or media about the sublime life of the luna moth. Profoundly grateful for what Barbara Kingsolver calls the "small things". 

"The heart of a woman" by W.B. Yeats- and the way it rubs me wrong.

Lingering in the bed a little too long this morning reading poetry. Joined by two lovely sprites to take the edge off a poem by Yeats, the kind of poem that requires me to close the book and revisit my assumptions.

THE HEART OF A WOMAN

O what to me the little room
That was brimmed up with prayer and rest;
He bade me out into the gloom,
And my breast lies upon his breast.

O what to me my mother's care,
The house where I was safe and warm;
The shadowy blossom of my hair
Will hide us from the bitter storm.

O hiding hair and dewy eyes,
I am no more with life and death,
My heart upon his warm heart lies,
My breath is mixed into his breath.

A child's body keeps us sometimes from acknowledging the budding heart within. It is easier for me to treat her like a "little girl" than to acknowledge the seed of the woman in her smile. 

When she pulls close to me and rubs my elbow- the way she self-soothes since her fond relationship with my breasts ended- I never forget to ask her what's wrong. Being her source of comfort makes it easy to know when to ask the pointed questions. 

She rubs a little harder and faster; the sensation moves from a tickle to a scouring. Her lips tug her cheeks toward the pillow. "Mommy....." she begins carefully. 

"Yes?" 

Her eyes hide behind the unusual sentiment of not knowing quite how to parse a question that might be obvious if our lives were not limited by the minutes and hours of the day. 

"Are you still gonna be my best friend on the next day- too?"

Unsure of my words, I reach for something solid- the twine necklaces we made together, strung from seed beads and then tied around our necks, our "best friendship necklaces". I take her little fingers and run them over the beads around my neck.

"I'll be your best friend for as long as you let me," I reply, knowing full well the day will come when this honor will be bestowed upon someone else. Gnome smiles. It is enough. Our necklaces, and "mommy's arm", the same arm she claimed as a future bridegroom when Little B. and Prophet demanded who she "wanted to marry". 

I want to tell Gnome that her "soft heart" is the strongest heart of all- the sort of heart that doesn't fear the weight of love, or find reasons to avoid empathy. I want to warn her that romantic love is limited by the available leisure time; and that love of every kind is usually defeated by the expectation of profit or return. I want her to know that love requires courage- and that true love does not oppress or create victims. But the words are too heavy for these few minutes we share in the bed. 

"I wish I could have a little bead just like that freckle above your lip...."

"Why, mommy?"

"Because then... I would put it on my necklace and touch it whenever I wondered what you were doing or playing."

She smiles and rolls over to greet her sister. I wonder this once, again, how to give them a love that does not valorize self-abnegation. The conversation between sisters continues.

Heeding the summons of spring.

We returned from our weeklong trip to Ohio to discover spring in full bloom all over the backyard. So I dug into the wild matters at hand. Obviously, the bags have yet to be unpacked and the fridge is still rather empty...

Yet, somehow, the important things- the ones that matter most in the grand scheme of things- got done. For example, the garden soil has been tilled and a few tomatoes were transplanted. All that indoor nonsense can wait for the next spring rain.

We admired the sinews of the soil under rocks and broken clay pots. The Eldest chortled with glee at every single earthworm uncovered.

The uncanny extent to which all the kids were repulsed by the white grub led to wonder whether the word "grub" itself is somehow disgusting. Or whether it suggests (all too readily, perhaps) the possibility of a crispy grub snack. 

The Eldest consults his notes concerning the personal needs of his various seeds.

We decided to make garden paths using recycled tornado-tumbled trees turned into wood chips by the Friends of Hurricane Creek's Creekkeeper. As you can see, the fun is only half-finished.

It makes so much sense to use local wood for our gardening needs rather than pour money into Home Depot to purchase mulch and woodchips covered in non-native biota that will probably disrupt local ecologies and food webs.

Prophet washes her hands under the rain barrel spout.

The Eldest has started his seeds.

I love the way he labelled them and lined them up along the windowsill "for every drop of sunlight". Though he is sad we don't have the time or means to maintain a community garden plot this year, I know he understands our former plot will go to others whose seeds will grow in the soil we helped maintain. A beautiful circle of life.

"Look at the dark tips on my lavender sprouts," he exclaimed. I nodded and smiled, trying to calibrate my excitement at seeing his hands succeed where mine often fail.

The Brandywine heirloom tomato sprout was greeted with a high-five- it's one of our most anticipated fruits for the coming summer.

"Thank you," I told the Eldest as I stared at his "final surprise". He wondered why I was thanking him.

"It's the first beet sprout I've ever seen," I confessed. "And.... I love it." He blushed and hugged me, but not without adding, "Awww Mom, you're going to make me turn beet red."

If only he knew what powerful seeds he sows in my heart with this dedication and determination to grow his own garden- to grow his own way, to grow anyway, in spite of my unspoken longing sometimes to kiss his not-so-little feet and toes. So it goes.

Observing the white oak taking root.

One of the best parts of last Friday's nature hike was the spine-tingling sight of a white oak acorn rooting itself in the soil, aiming to become a tree. It happened by accident, of course. The little folks lingered to fill their pockets with fallen acorns. But something about these acorns made them very, very difficult to pick up.

On closer observation, the acorns had tapped into the soil, their plantly umbilical cords too firmly rooted to budge. We sat still and admired their way of growing and the connection a seed forms with the ground. (Later, as we re-capped the hike, the Eldest said the acorns added a "whole new meaning to the name Mother Earth for him.)

Amy showed us the inside of the acorn caps and explained how we could distinguish white oak seeds from other kinds of oak by the smoothness of the undercap. It made sense to note the GPS coordinates so we might return to admire the most successful saplings later on in the year.

Honestly, I never thought I'd feel such a wash of emotions over an acorn- but it was beautiful in that unspeakable, sublime sort of way, the way reserved for poetry and music, a way that transcends this world while being nurtured by it.

Tell me a tree story- one about the ways roots dig and reveal.

When my dad came to visit last week, we took the kids to River Road Park and wandered around, struck by the way in which the exposed roots paralleled family reunions. The way family life leaves us exposed and vulnerable at our most tender spots, the areas which keep us connected to this earth and the world of meaning woven by intimate interactions.

Every family, like every tree, has its own adaptations to the soil and environment in which it grows.

There are ways, for example, in which my trunk is crooked with cravings for books and tender touch, desires so exorbitant that the native soil in which I grew could not possibly have met them. 

Over time, we reflect the way in which light and shadow crossed our path. Each new branch suggests a new growth- a new way of reaching towards something in life- so each hope becomes a possibility, a fork in the endless numbers of path defining who we are and how we grew into it.

"Tell me a story about trees and roots," I ask the Eldest, hoping the lilt in my voice will go unnoticed. He tells me about the way the tree trunks facing the river bear more moss on their sides. I am struck by the courage with which he tells a story that remains open to the question of "why".

There is a sense in which I am just an unintended audience, a woman on the banks of the Black Warrior River who happens to overhear a boy's conversation with the trees. A bystander inclined to read too much into the seeing the reflection of the ivy's burden staring back up from the water.

There is more to see. I find myself admiring the graceful tree whose roots are completely exposed. How the root stretches sideways into the bank, building strength into the horizontal axis.

I make a note to myself to journal the associations of the word exposed and horizon or horizontal.

I make a note to myself to honor the engravings of time in my dad's face, setting them next to the trunk of a tree, discovering how life marks us with the storms we have weathered.

"Hey dad," I say, stifling a laugh, "keep talking like that with your arms in the air..."

The professor expounds his contrarian views on climate change. I agree to let myself disagree with him, saying only that we are responsible for the ways in which we change the world, whether for better or worse. It is easy to argue with the professor- and easy to love him in spite of the disagreements. The Strawberry Shortcake sticker on the underside of his sleeve ends his serious lecture and leaves us laughing. 

Bunicu and the king, between beards.

Find a tree, survey the roots, and tell its story. The words you find, like the soil we cultivate, are held in common.

Mining a fallow field for stories.

The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness.... Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word "unspeakable".... Atrocities, however, refuse to be buried....Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims.... When the truth is finally recognized, survivors can begin their recovery. But far too often secrecy prevails, and the story of the traumatic event surfaces not as a verbal narrative but as a symptom....

Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery, 1992

Yesterday, the Eldest and I sat on the damp grass, writing in our nature journals- his eyes locked on a story he was telling about henbit. But the henbit didn't interest me, not enough, not really. I wrestled with the words that lay sleeping. The colors of the storm-drained day forced me to seek the life around me, to push against the temptation of laziness and lack of color, strain my eyes to find the green on the field.

I turned quietly to the Eldest for inspiration. His nature journaling was notable for its flow state. I felt suddenly self-conscious- the laggard in the long line of people excited about the goal behind the waiting. Why was the wonder absent? How could I retrieve it? 

Nevermind that the attempt to control wonder- to force it to the surface- fails for its willed desperation. It's the babies we most want to conceive- the ones that we intend to fit into the perfect plans for our lives- that give us grief for their refusal to arrive upon demand.

I remember lying on the king-sized bed and talking to my eggs. "Look guys," I said, hoping the Eldest would not overhear, "your job is to get fertilized and give me that baby we want so badly." Ultimately, the conversation ended badly. I didn't get pregnant for another eight months- exactly three weeks after I'd given up on getting pregnant. Prophet, whom I'd hoped to will into existence, eluded me so long as my desperate pursuit retained the aura of a supplication.

I'm the kind of person that fears those moments in which I can't find the story that ties the room together. Like the Dude, I need the rug, my woven waft of words, to anchor everything else.

The uncharmed moments- the ones that don't "speak" to me- ruin plans and turn delight into drudgery. Like a woman holding a grocery-store corn cob, whose perfect rows of kernels add a foreign presence to the kitchen, it seems all there is left for me to do is to add water and boil it. But what's the point of adding to heat to an unhusked object? How am I different from a tool when my only task is to push the right button?

Judith Herman's insights into the transformative, liberating power of narrative resonate with me. For it's not only trauma that requires narrative liberation- the cycles and rhythms of everyday life bud and bloom best when untangled through stories. Yet, we dread the presumed price of honesty, weighing it against our self-concept and pride. I assume being "myself" means being the self I have known and recognized for all these years. I find excuses to keep from telling the stories that threaten this static, unchanged self. 

"I move to keep things whole," Mark Strand reminds me. The true story of a self can only be a quest, a tale in which the protagonist changes and adapts, acquiring the traits discovered in leaves and creatures along the path. Being dedicated to a story about an unchanged self generates its own forms of trauma- the trauma of living in the past and never marveling over how those lines suddenly appeared around my eyes. Under the circumstances, all that matters is getting rid of those lines that make me look "older". Being physically "young" becomes part of the story I tell about the past self, the only one I can love enough to narrate. 

"I move to keep things whole."

So read my nature journal entry for yesterday's 45-minute observation period. The Eldest covered four pages, front and back, with scribbles and scrawls about sapsucker marks on trees and the perfect seeding method of tulip trees. I settled for six words.

But those six words reminded me of the story I continue to observe in the social ecology of American family life- a story woven of many strands, one that looks different enough to obscure the shared loom, the common threads. Maybe the only stories worth telling are the ones that lead us into a livable present. Maybe the only wonder worth engaging is the kind that creeps up on us, uninvited, and reveals the leaf miner at the heart of the leaf. 

The surprise of snow.

During our first economics lesson this morning- one involving an experiment of crayon scarcity- a little person looked out the window and screamed, "It's SNOWING!" Pandemonium ensued.

Suddenly, the room was taken over by jumping, leaping little people seeking gloves, mittens, hats, coats, and snow, snow, snow. Obviously, our exploration of scarcity would have to make way for our immediate exploration of snow (which does tend to be rather scarce in these parts).

There's something very, very funny about snow in the south.

Of course, little B. needed to try a taste...

The Gnome reminded me of how much she "loves snow".

The Eldest led the group in various tromps around the yard to observe where the snow was accumulating."These are the places we will find snowball-making materials in a few hours..." he declared.

Extensive concern was expressed over Pinka's ability to navigate the snow and find shelter from it within the yard. So the little people pushed the playhouse closer to Pinka within reach of her lead.

Then our neighbors from up the street dropped by to see if the Eldest wanted to play in the snow. And off he went, red-cheeked and bubbling. 

Oh, how I love watching the plans of a day fall away in the face of joy, wonder, and surprise snow play...

An alpine sunrise followed by logistical decisions.

On the day when the King captured this Colorado sunrise, we sipped coffee and debated whether to head over to Raven at Three Peaks, a golf course that an electrician told us was great for sledding and nordic skiing.

The possibility of skiing on a golf course did not sound alluring- but the King insisted that we should rather play it safe than play it sorry.

The Phish song, "Northern Lights", came to mind.

"I think we should look for some easy hiking trails and try to ski those...." I said.

"How about Breckenridge?"

"Breck is so geared up and hip- I'd rather go somewhere with a negligible cool factor, somewhere I can fit in."

The King almost rolled his eyes. But, instead, he asked me to suggest another location. So I went back to my original longing- to explore some old mine trails some where closer to the treeline. Say, Baldy Mine Loop Tour, for example.

Or Herman's Gulch?

Or the Peaks Trail? That one smacked of adventure.

"Aren't those the trails designated as possible disasters?" my husband asked.

"Adventures, disasters, glass half empty, glass half full....."

The trails around Dillon looked- at first- like something we might be able to agree upon. That is, until other, more winsome possibilities came to mind. 

Sometimes everything we might do stacks high against those few things we can do. But we can agree on the beauty of an alpine sunrise. And we can take it from there, this once, again.

David Abrams and the narrative shift.

Stopping to gaze upwards for a moment...

Caught up in a mass of abstractions, our attention hypnotized by a host of human-made technologies that only reflect us back to ourselves, it is all too easy for us to forget our carnal inherence in a more-than-human matrix of sensations and sensibilities. Our bodies have formed themselves in delicate reciprocity with the manifold textures, sounds, and shapes of an animate earth – our eyes have evolved in subtle interaction with other eyes, as our ears are attuned by their very structure to the howling of wolves and the honking of geese. To shut ourselves off from these other voices, to continue by our lifestyles to condemn these other sensibilities to the oblivion of extinction, is to rob our own senses of their integrity, and to rob our minds of their coherence. We are human only in contact, and conviviality, with what is not human.

David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World

Returning to an old love at 35.

My calves ache. Each time I lean forward, a burning sensation tunnels up from my ankle. The small muscles above my knees throb when I bend to pick up a book. My inner thighs feel like they felt after the first time I tried to do a split. 

But my body doesn't ache enough. You see, I can still walk and talk and laugh. I can empty the dishwasher painlessly. I can even car-dance, which is exactly what I did while driving home last night with Lady Gaga's "Do What You Want" blasting from the minivan speakers. 

My first two classes at Ballet Arts and Fitness brought back all the old love for ballet- for the way it impresses your body into the service of disciplined movement and measure. The way the sweat emerges- more like a sheen than a river- after barre. I've forgotten the technical names for the positions, and yet the flowering persists like an inarticulable memory in which I find myself moving without knowing exactly how this movement became so natural.

After ACL and MCL complete reconstruction in my right knee, after herniated discs and years in which even driving a car was impossible, being given the freedom to dance again is such a precious gift that I can't bring myself to stop doing it. So I danced in parking lot of Target with The Eldest. And I danced in the front yard as Angie watched from inside the house. And I danced in the living room as the little folks joined me. And I danced in the bathroom as I pondered whether to take a bath. 

Dancing is a language my body can speak. Unlike the lumbering gait of softball, those days when I stood anxiously in the outfield, hoping the ball would not come my way to find me tripping over anthills to catch it. I was never good at softball. My body didn't do "home runs" or "good throws". But whenever a melody wafted through the air, my mind grew silent while my body responded, beginning a conversation as unique and fascinating as the song itself. 

To be able to dance is to be able able to speak, again. It is to be able to have those conversations with pieces and tunes. It is to lose my own voice while discovering the facile articulation of the arms, legs, hips, ankles, and shoulders. It is something Rainer Maria Rilke might have called "sublime", if the taste for dance pulsed through his veins. It is a wonder and a mystery. And it is the place where I always find the missing pieces to the parts of the day that went awry. I am so very grateful.....

In awe of the quaking aspen.

A beautiful aspen stand down the street from us in Keystone.

It's hard not to fall in love with an aspen. A man working at the thrift store in Frisco told me that aspens are the only deciduous trees that grow at the high elevations in much of Summit County, Colorado.

Quaking aspens, also called trembling aspens, are named for their leaves. Flat, heart-shaped leaves attach to branches with lengthy stalks called petioles, which quake or tremble in light breezes. Quaking aspens regularly grow in dense, pure stands, creating a stunning golden vista when their leaves change color in the fall. 

 

 

A face smiles back at me and Max from the bark.

 

Aspen are often identified by their silvery, white bark. But this bark is spectacular on many levels- it carries out photosynthesis, a task usually reserved for tree leaves. In winter, when other deciduous trees are mostly dormant, quaking aspens are able to keep producing sugar for energy.

Thanks to the way in which organic leaf matter becomes richer soil, some of the most beautiful wildflowers can be found underneath the aspen trees in the spring and summer. Deer, moose, and elk seek shade from aspen groves in summer. These same animals consume bark, leaves, buds, and twigs of quaking aspen throughout the year. Ruffed grouse is especially dependent on quaking aspen for food and nesting habitat. 

People use quaking aspen for fuel and to make paper, particle board, furniture, and hamster bedding.

A few leaves left frozen like candies on a aspen sapling.

The stunning aspen is not in any danger these days- not unless you count the likes of the pocket gopher, which feed on roots and seem to be one of the few creatures able to curtail the growth of aspen groves. The other major inhibitor of aspen growth is fire suppression. Quaking aspens require intense sunlight to grow, but when other trees spring up in the forest, aspen stems are shaded out. Fire reduces canopy cover and allows for the continued growth of quaking aspens. While the root system will survive with little care, proper management of the stems aboveground is important, since both people and wildlife make use of the trees.

Quaking Aspen Notebook Page (PDF)

More to chase:

Quaking aspen plant guide (USDA)
Quaking aspen handbook page (NDSU Agriculture)
Quaking aspen forests of the Colorado Plateau (Land Use History of North America)

Snow-shoeing in White River National Forest.

The day was so beautiful- with at least four inches of freshly fallen snow- that we decided only a national forest could quell our appetites. So we drove a couple of miles off Montezuma Road to White River National Forest for some snow-shoeing.

Snake River gurgled alongside the road. Finally, we pulled off to get a closer look. Hot darn!

How could we say "no" to such a scene?

Fortunately, Ratpaw showed up in his rental car with his brand new snowshoes and some chocolate in his pockets. "Why don't we walk along Snake River?" he chirped. And so we did.

The King led the way; he just couldn't help himself.

But the trail he was following was not the one I preferred (not at the moment, at least, when HE was leading us down it).

So, I went my own way, keeping watch on my snow-shoeing comrades from behind the branches.

Snake River's water was that blue-green that always reminds me of limestone quarries or rocks nearby. I watched the guys traipse through the thick mounds of snow, only the crunching sound of their snowshoes pressing into that crisp outer layer of ice surrounding the powder.

Just before the official trail ended, our paths crossed again.

The only trail left to follow was the one left by this creature friend, whom Ratpaw took to be a snowshoe hare or perhaps a fox.

We witnessed such beautiful things- frost-covered fringes hanging along the banks of Snake River.

But the costly hours of ski school ticked away...

And Ratpaw got into a fight with a small, frozen shrub.

Sometimes falling is the best way to end things.

Our most magical holiday card yet.

Retrieving the mail is exciting during the holiday season- the little people love to open colorful holiday envelopes containing photos of faces (some recently seen, some rarely seen) that remind us our lives and our hearts are much bigger than the social circles of our small southern town.

But their favorite card so far was one received earlier this week. It came in a simple white envelope with an address from just up the street.

Inside the envelope, the kids found a mysterious flat structure- "it looks like we need to blow it up, Mom," urged Micah.

When Max carefully "blew it up", it turned into a marvelous snow globe with caught and refracted the light from all sides.

Milla wanted to "shake it".

Micah quickly intervened- "It's a card, Milla- you don't shake cards!"

"Umm hmmm," replied Milla.

"No," Micah said, somewhat exasperated, "You only shake it when it's GLASS."

I left the conversation alone right there, knowing that any admonitions would not save the next shaken glass in the castle. But the card is beautiful enough for Max to be sitting with cardstock, cutting, trying to find a way to create his own version.

A simple printable to identify evergreens- one intended for small folks.

 

In Yule celebrations long ago, evergreens were commonly used for rituals and decorations. The trees' steadfastness in the face of bitter cold and dark gave people hope that the sun would indeed come back to warm the earth again. Any tree that can bear the cold must be pretty powerful, right?

One evergreen- mistletoe- plays a special role duing the holiday season.  Since Tuscaloosa is also known as "Druid City", every Tuscaloosan might be interested in learning more about the importance of mistletoe to the Druids. The Druids held mistletoe to be sacred, believing it had healing power and promoted fertility. The custom of kissing underneath it probably relates to its ability to make one fruitful. 

Also, according to legends and drawings, the Holly King uses a golden sickle to cut mistletoe from the gnarled branches of an oak tree. Holly and mistletoe are both traditionally hung during mid-winter to represent the transition of power from the Holly King (who rules the waning year) to the Oak King (who reigns over the waxing year).

In Britain and the Northlands, evergreens were used to chase away the winter demons. Many farmers tied apples to evergreens to express their hopes for a new harvest. May your holidays be filled with intoxicating scent of evergreens...

A three-year-old's thoughts on "being in love".

Milla has been talking about love lately.

More specifically, she keeps referring to "being in love". It's hard to believe she is only three years old, as I haven't heard much talk of romance from the mouths of other budding babes.

Milla chatting with Joshua on Thanksgiving- Linda and I overheard lots of giggles from the foyer.

SCENE: Today, at the castle, the kids prepare to go play outside in the wet grass with a dreary December sky overhead. I zip up B.'s coat, and help Micah wiggle into her cardigan.

ME: "If you say 'thank you', then I get to say one of my favorite things."

MICAH.: "What?"

ME: "I'm not going to tell you without the magic words..."

MICAH: "Thank you, Mommy."

ME: "Oh man, you are so-o-o-o welcome Micah."

I help snap the buttons on Milla's denim jacket.

ME: "It makes me feel warm inside when someone says 'Thank you' to me... All warm and fuzzy."

MILLA: "I too, Mommy!"

The final button snaps shut.

MILLA: "Thank you, Mommy."

ME: "You are so very, very welcome, my Milla."

Milla cocks her head to one side and grins. Her eyes meet mine in the warm squinty ooze I recognize all too well-  the one akin to that similar squinty sweetness which runs through the veins of the King.

MILLA: "I feel like I gonna fall in love wich you...",

 We stare at each other for a second, tasting the fullness of love and life. She is her father's daughter. I am her father's partner. There are oceans of unlived delight between us.

A rock maze in autumn.

Milla decided to rearrange the rock maze... Something about the rich blanket of fall leaves made it difficult for the kids to find their way through the rocks. So Milla set about "fixing" things. She's a fixer. 

Meanwhile, nearby, we were simply a-mazed to discover how some plants ensure proper seed distribution. Fortunately, I did not have any plastic bags to bring home this sample for future learning opportunities. Max did put one of the seeds in his pocket so we could determine what plant was being "poop-planted".

Unfortunately, by the time we returned home, Max had "lost" the seed, which happens to resemble a number of the seeds we are snacking on these days.

Stones, seeds, leaves, life- all the swirling, all the color, never ceases. I've vowed to let my jaw drop more often in sheer amazement at the beauty and wackiness of life. I think this is a better choice than my usual holiday frenzy of lists and must-do's and plans....

The Alabama Blues Project Fundraiser, or how Max got a fancy new harp.

Because he lost his backpack with his harp, chess notebook, and several expensive field guides contained within, I purchased a new harp for him- one that cost five times as much as the one he lost. I'm not good at incentives.

He looked forward to playing with the spontaneous combustion of the soul sisters- but the soul sisters were sick. Imagine our fun fortune when he got the chance to play with the Blues Project Intermediate Band. 

Even the chapped lips couldn't stop him from the thrill of those wooden reeds. In fact, he rushed to the restroom to wash his mouth before touching his lips to his harp. Explanation: "Mom, you know that chapstick can clog the reeds..." I can't remember if he added the provisional "Duh". 

After explaining the sad story of Trayvon's death to him, Max finally agreed that wearing his hoodie during the performance might not be advisable. On the other hand, he said he wanted to wear his hoodie whenever he walked in a park or a street in memory of Trayvon. (Sheesh- the Max has an even stronger sense of justice than his mother...)

Candlelight, a steady dose of blues, and the soft glimmer of a brand new harp that nothing can keep you from playing- what more can we ask of life?

 

A fall learning activity: Celebrate the "fall ball".

Studying sparrows at the library this morning.

The weather was so perfect earlier this week that we decided to go out and chronicle the annual event known to a handful of persons as the "Fall Ball". If you've never heard of the Fall Ball, you've probably still enjoyed it. That's the name we minted to describe the different colors worn by each tree species. Today, with the onset of the November rains, marked the end of this year's Fall Ball.

But our chronicling of this gala has just begun... Here's the free activity sheet for download followed by the poem we used to frame our exploration.

THE ANNUAL FALL BALL ACTIVITY (PDF)

A few of the stunning trees attending the Fall Ball this year....

The brittle maroon dress of the flowering dogwood trees....

The frilly yellow tunic of the maple....

And the spectacular golden variety of the sugar maple's heavy gown...

Sometimes we can't find the tree to place the leaf.

A tiny frill of purplish crimson lining the edge of a sleeve...

Milla compares a few fallen dress tatters.

Of course, I wouldn't leave you with a cheat-sheet (though I hope you won't use it). Just know that the cheat sheet is there for emergency use.... Tree ID is much more enriching and fun without taking easy shortcuts.

OUR KOINONIA EXPERIENCE: Discovering our spiritual footprints.

We ventured out along the dirt road the meadows near the pecan orchards, back towards the creek and the reknowned Picnic Hill. The roosters had their say amid the chirps and the steady sound of hammers in the hands of a few volunteers from the Fuller Center for Housing. I found myself chasing the little people, lamenting their joie de vivre which often felt more like lack of self-control or obedience. Again, the old question- why can't they drop everything and obey me? Again, the sharp answer, also a question- why do I need to feel this sort of power over them?

The king created a lovely parting gift- a journal filled with verses, photos, poems, and daily meditations. I longed for the free time to sit down and pore through its pages. Stealing moments and glimpses only to find myself conscious of the way Milla's shrill shrieking (a new habit) strangled the soft sounds of nature and creation.

The ugliness within- here it comes- the true test of my faith, the way in which I allow myself to feel that the little people grate every available nerve. My hands lay idle, yet filled with the care and nurture, the possibilities of need to which I must continuously tend. I found myself distracted by the barriers within my own heart to accepting the mystery of life. It seems I would prefer it to be a pretty picture that I have designed and painted without any input from Max, Micah, or Milla- a picture of my own making which I can then encourage everyone to admire. 

Does it seem silly that I thanked God for their heedlessness and disobedience at that moment when I most wanted them to sit down, plait the grass, and obey?

The little people collecting fallen limbs from the field.

In an effort to make ourselves useful, we picked up fallen tree limbs and branches from the soccer field. Max stacked them around the base of a tree- with Micah and Milla quickly joining him. Then the kids had a contest to see who could snap the largest number of branches into kindling. Watching them break twigs, arguing and laughing, building tiny piles of tinder in a race against each other, even their competition offered a truce of sorts- a moment to stop, breathe, and appreciate the lives we've been given to live and love. 

After carting a few bags of kindling over the the bonfire pit, Max returned just in time to find Milla crying over a recent foray into a fire-ant hill. Her tiny plump feet were covered in red welts. I made a practical discovery with vast implications for future fire-ant incidents. Iodine, applied heavily with a cottonball, works wonders on fire-ant bites. After an hour, Milla's welts dried out, removing every trace of the white bumps that characterize a fire ant's vicious communication. The little things should never cease to fill our hearts with gratitude.

Another source of gratitude came with the development of a more other-regarding awareness. There's a consciousness that comes from sharing a house with six hard-working interns- a house that is open to us whether we have money to donate $30 a night or not. I found myself watching my voice and its volume, standing to walk into the adjacent room in order to talk to the kids rather than shout across the rooms. By facing them up close, the way in which I communicated also changed- my words and language softened by the tenderness of flesh and proximity. 

Alongside this re-humanized way of relating, I was struck by the way in which communal property earned a sort of respect from me that private property rarely evokes. Oddly, it mattered that we put the chairs back in the way we had found them. Knowing that everyone draws water from the same well, we took short showers and shared bathwater to make minimal use of this precious resource. Micah reminded us to turn off the lights and the fan. 

We became conscious of our footprints not just on this world from an ecological standpoint but on the lives of others around us. A loud song from our room might keep others awake in the room next door. A yell might jar someone's prayers. In a community where residents live nearby, there is an implicit understanding that one must honor the humanity and spirit of other persons. The way we express our grievances ripples in circles around us.

That second night at Koinonia, on our starlight walk, all four of us talked about our newly-discovered "spiritual footprints", or the way in which our spirits impress and affect the world around us through through words, thoughts, and deeds. It was a heady and beautiful revelation, one with which I am still reckoning.

And yet I would lack the honor of this reckoning if it weren't for the spirited excitement of the little people that share this space under the stars with me. Perhaps this is because the things I think I want are not those which allow my spirit to grow. Instead, the things I want (i.e. peace, silence, obedience, control) encourage spiritual statis, keeping things as they are, exposing me to familiar delights and comforts. Being broken can be beautiful thing.